Cypress Semiconductor Earnings Preview

Investors are on the edge of their seats, hoping that Cypress Semiconductor (Nasdaq: CY  ) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, July 21. Cypress Semiconductor designs, develops, manufactures, and markets high-performance, mixed-signal, programmable solutions that provide customers with rapid time-to-market and system value.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock, with 10 of them rating it as a buy and only two rating it as a sell. Analysts like Cypress Semiconductor better than competitor Silicon Laboratories overall. While analysts still rate the stock a hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $251.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 12.8% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.19 per share. Estimates range from $0.14 to $0.22.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 98.3% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All Stars, with 96.5% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are keen on Cypress Semiconductor and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 288 posts in the past 30 days. Cypress Semiconductor has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Cypress Semiconductor's profit has risen year over year by an average of 38.2%. The company upped its gross margin by 2.6 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 15.2% while cost of sales rose 8.9% to $104.3 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters:

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Gross Margin	55.2%	55.9%	58.1%	56%
Operating Margin	23.6%	7.2%	13.2%	12.2%
Net Margin	23.7%	4.3%	14.8%	8.7%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Cypress Semiconductor movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your Watchlist.

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